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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933801">Any Way</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ringtheory/pseuds/ringtheory'>ringtheory</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:33:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,172</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933801</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ringtheory/pseuds/ringtheory</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix glances back over his shoulder and says, “I don’t think I’m coming back here.”</p><p>Dimitri smiles hesitantly. He replies, “Felix… I am certain you have your own reasons, and – I won’t pry. But if there if there is even the slightest chance that you ever wish to return then I want you to know… There will always be a place for you here.”<br/>“I know,” Felix says before looking forward again. Though Dimitri cannot see Felix’s face, he imagines that the expression Felix wears is resolute. Because he believes that Felix’s words and decisions must be full of purpose unlikely to easily yield, Dimitri finds his tongue tied and his thoughts unorganized. Felix knows there will be a place that remains for him always – but Dimitri understands that is precisely why there is meaning to the fact that Felix is choosing to leave that place in the first place.</p><p>So Dimitri doesn’t say anything else. Or perhaps it is that Dimitri can’t say anything else.</p><p>Felix leaves. True to his word, he does not ever come back.</p><p>- - -</p><p> <span><em>“But that’s not how it actually happens.”</em></span></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>87</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Felix turns away from Dimitri. The way he exhales is pronounced but not quite a sigh; there is something more to it than a basic act of sustainment yet not enough to it that Dimitri can confidently ascribe an exact emotion or meaning to it. Then Felix glances back over his shoulder and says, “I don’t think I’m coming back here.”</p><p>Dimitri smiles hesitantly. He replies, “Felix… I am certain you have your own reasons, and – I won’t pry. But if there if there is even the slightest chance that you ever wish to return then I want you to know… There will always be a place for you here.”  </p><p>“I know,” Felix says before looking forward again. Though Dimitri cannot see Felix’s face, he imagines that the expression Felix wears is resolute. Because he believes that Felix’s words and decisions must be full of purpose unlikely to easily yield, Dimitri finds his tongue tied and his thoughts unorganized. Felix knows there will be a place that remains for him always – but Dimitri understands that is precisely why there is meaning to the fact that Felix is choosing to leave that place in the first place.</p><p>So Dimitri doesn’t say anything else. Or perhaps it is that Dimitri <em>can’t</em> say anything else.</p><p>Felix leaves. True to his word, he does not ever come back. And Dimitri would henceforth wonder every once in a while: If there had been any way to make Felix want to stay, what would it have been?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span class="font-reallydarkgray">
    <em>“But that’s not how it actually happens.”</em>
  </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>This is how it actually happens.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Around the turn of the new year, Felix stops taking notes during classes. So before any reason is revealed, already Dimitri suspects that something has changed – Felix has never been studious but he is so consistent with his habits and duties that Dimitri often wishes he could find a way to praise this trait such that Felix would accept his compliments or at least his sincerity.</p><p>Felix doesn’t call Dimitri out but one afternoon, he lingers in the classroom after everybody else has left. It is known as a general fact among the Blue Lions that Dimitri tries to be the last one there whenever possible; therefore Dimitri does not think it self-important to tentatively assume this signals that Felix has something he either wants or needs to talk to Dimitri about.</p><p>The moment that it is the two of them alone, Dimitri’s heart flutters; it does not beat harder but it does beat faster. He smiles tentatively and tries to get a sense of whether Felix will allow him to step closer – but the atmosphere around Felix is cold and repels invitation.</p><p><em>Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?</em> Dimitri tries to make himself say. The attempt at exchanging pleasantries dies in his throat so he waits for Felix to speak first.</p><p>“I’ve decided to leave the Blue Lions,” Felix finally says, “so I don’t think I’m coming back here.”</p><p>The hesitant smile that he had put on when he was full of hope just moments ago hardens onto Dimitri’s face like a clay mask.</p><p>“I see,” Dimitri replies, even though he feels he is blind to what truly matters: Felix’s intent. “I’m sure it’s something that you’ve thought about carefully, and I – ”</p><p>His voice catches.</p><p>Felix doesn’t react and Dimitri is tempted to believe he imagined his own slip of the tongue. He inhales and attempts to gather himself. Failing to reform his thoughts in any salient sense, Dimitri settles for the closest truism that will fit the situation. “And I want you to know that you will always have a place here, if you should ever wish to return,” he says, tone a touch quieter than it was when he had started replying.</p><p>Dimitri swallows and again tries to reorganize his mind. He knows that such a trite cliché will not linger in Felix’s mind but he cannot discern what string of words or expression of sentiment would be enough to make Felix remember this moment as a warm reassurance to look back upon and be tempted by when times are difficult –  not as a clean farewell.</p><p>He expects Felix to respond with, <em>I know.</em> What Felix actually replies with is, “If that’s all you have to say… then we should leave things at that.”</p><p>There is a pronounced terseness to Felix’s phrasing. True as it is that Felix dislikes talking around things, rarely does he restrain himself from saying what he truly thinks. Dimitri doesn’t know what to make of the fact that Felix appears to be holding his tongue. This is easier to fixate on than the fact that he also doesn’t understand what combination of factors has caused Felix to decide that he has no recourse less extreme than parting ways with the Blue Lions entirely.</p><p>“Can I ask you – ” Dimitri begins to say just as Felix has started to turn to leave.</p><p>Felix pauses. He looks back over his shoulder but does not say anything.</p><p>Dimitri awkwardly swims in his own uncertainty; he is as drowned by it as he would by water submerging him. <em>Why do you feel like you need to go so far?</em> he thinks.</p><p>But that’s not what he says.</p><p>“Can I ask you to reconsider?” he says.</p><p>Felix answers, “Ask it if you feel like it.”</p><p>“Please reconsider,” Dimitri replies.</p><p>Before Felix says anything, he exhales audibly. “I’ll probably always be reconsidering it,” he finally says. Then he orients himself fully forward and leaves. Despite his final words, he does not ever come back.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>But this isn’t how it happens either.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span class="font-reallydarkgray"> <em>“Third time is the charm.”</em> </span>
</p><p> </p><p>So they say, at least.</p><p>Let us try again.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>This is how it more or less happens.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It was any time. It was any place. These details don’t matter. The crux of this set-up is that it was Dimitri and Felix, alone together at the same time and place.</p><p>Felix says, “I don’t think I’m coming back here.” In this context, <em>here</em> is implicitly understood to be <em>a place nearby Dimitri’s side.</em></p><p>In response, Dimitri pleads. He shows his desperation openly. The depth of that emotion is to the point where Dimitri no longer owns his desperation. No – desperation owns him. Dimitri gets on his knees. He clasps his hands. He presses his forehead to the ground close to the tip of Felix’s boot. Dimitri cries. He begs. He begs. And then he begs.</p><p>But he can’t give Felix a reason to stay.</p><p>How could he possibly explain? To formulate these words for a third party to interpret and judge is comparatively a simpler task because they merely require the listing of things that Dimitri wishes he could express in a way that Felix would understand. But in front of Felix, he does not merely wish to be understood – I want him to accept me despite everything that understanding would reveal. But it is too much to hope for; the two desires seem irrevocably irreconcilable. At the zenith of my yearning for both I realized that from my inability to truly forsake one for the other, both will inevitably escape me.</p><p>So all I can do is beg.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Anyway.</p><p>Please understand that it isn’t that I <i>need</i> Felix to stay with me. How wretched it would be to be needed by me. Still I want him to be always nearby – at least somewhere that I could affirm every once in a while with my own senses and judgment that he is not ailing – and that I would know when he is in danger. Often people who knew Felix when he was a child say that he is growing more like Glenn in both his temperament and his appearance. But when I look at him, what I see and what I remember is that there was a time when the unclouded sky looked blue to me. And the sea in the distance from my bedside window in Fhirdiad looked a different blue. Even still my father’s eyes were yet a different shade – and mine when I saw my reflection in windows – though perhaps that because of the tint of the glass. During the summer, we would make trips together to the Tailtean Plains and when the breeze blew it was pleasantly warm against my skin. The smell of wheat growing and the chirps of little birds and the taste of something earthy in the air… Sometimes I wonder, <i>where have these things gone?</i> And then I realize it is not that these things have gone anywhere – it is that I am nowhere to be found within them. But through Felix sometimes briefly I can see myself in a way such that my shape is undistorted and my essence feels undirtied. Because the resemblance between Felix and Glenn has grown and consumed some part of Felix, in my perception the contrasts between them are even sharper. In that sharpness of that lens, sometimes for a brief moment I can catch a glimpse of myself reflected in his perception. So I don’t need him to love me. I don’t need him to care for me. I could endure it if he came to hate me. But if Felix goes, then will I no longer – </p><p> </p><p>It is not something I should say.</p><p>How wretched would it be to be needed by me?</p><p> </p><p>Anyway…<br/><span class="font-reallydarkgray"><br/><em>“But this as well is not how it happens.”</em><br/></span><br/>Yes. My apologies for the digression.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="font-reallydarkgray"> <em>This is how it happens.</em> </span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Felix turns away. He breathes out. He looks over his shoulder. His gaze is just off center of looking at Dimitri. He says, “I don’t think I’m coming back here.”</p><p>Dimitri replies, “Felix… I am <em><span class="font-reallydarkgray">asking something selfish of you, but –</span></em> <em><span class="font-reallydarkgray">I need you. So</span></em> if there is even the slightest chance that <em><span class="font-reallydarkgray">I might be able to change your mind</span></em> then I <em><span class="font-reallydarkgray">have to ask you… </span></em> <em><span class="font-reallydarkgray">Would you please not go?</span></em></p><p> “I know,” Felix says before looking forward again.</p><p>
  <em> <span class="font-reallydarkgray">Dimitri did not understand what it was that Felix knew or if specifying it would even matter. Felix replied and so he could make himself believe that at the very least – Felix was considering his words. Instinctively he knew that if he let this opportunity slip through his fingers then he would think about this moment for the rest of his life and etch that regret into his being like a scar. So he spoke. And as he spoke, he found the right words – the words to make Felix stay by his side. Once he began to speak they came to him naturally. </span> </em>
</p><p>So Felix<em><span class="font-reallydarkgray"> doesn’t leave. Because he never </span></em>leaves<em><span class="font-reallydarkgray">, he foregoes the need to “come back” entirely. That is how it happens.</span></em></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>But that isn’t how it happens. Why are you doing this…? That isn’t how it happens.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <span class="font-reallydarkgray">
    <br/>
    <em>Isn’t that what you wanted? To make him stay? “If there had been any way to make Felix stay…” – did you not think that? </em>
    <br/>
  </span>
  <br/>
  <span class="font-reallydarkgray"><br/><em>You did. Thus it has been rewritten for you.</em> If you choose to believe in it, then it can become your narrative – your truth. <em>This is what you wanted. Did you not desire that?</em><br/><br/></span>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I didn’t.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is not something that “happens” and so cannot be verified – but this is a truth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Felix says, “I don’t think I’m coming back here,” Dimitri’s mind first races with a panicked fervor to search for the right words to say. But the sense of urgency and dread temporarily abates when he realizes that there are other means by which he can prevent Felix from leaving. For example: while it is permitted for students to leave their assigned house, there remains an element of social taboo about turning one’s back to those sharing a homeland. If the crown prince of Faerghus were to politely suggest in the correct company that he finds it distasteful or unfortunate that the heir to House Fraldarius thought it appropriate to leave the class housing students from Faerghus then intrafamilial dynamics would likely cause Felix to renege on his decision – if against his own will.</p>
<p>Almost immediately Dimitri hates himself for being capable of even forming the thought of his mind but it occurs to him that if what he wants is something he desires deeply enough and if he isn’t lying to himself when he thinks, <em>I could endure it if Felix came to hate me</em>, then he does not have to find a way to induce Felix to want to stay. He could instead face a much easier task: to create conditions under which <em>Felix must stay. </em></p>
<p>Felix knows there will be a place that remains for him always – and Dimitri understands that is precisely why there is meaning to the fact that Felix is choosing to leave that place in the first place. But the contrapositive as well is true. If Felix isn’t allowed to choose whether to stay or leave, then there is no meaning to the fact that there is a place for Felix always near Dimitri’s side.</p>
<p>So Dimitri cannot act upon that impulse. Still the thought comforted him, and for that he felt an earnest disgust directed at himself. How wretched he is – to be reassured by something so vile.</p>
<p>Anyway…</p>
<p>That is the truth.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>This is how it happened.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Felix turned away from me and I could feel my expression freeze. I think I sensed instinctively that he was about to say something that would cut me right down to my bones. Felix sighed and in turn I held my breath in until he next spoke. I sensed neither exasperation nor melancholy in the way he exhaled: it was some emotion which I could not identify altogether.</p>
<p>He glanced back over his shoulder and met my gaze. “I don’t think I’m coming back here,” he said.</p>
<p>I exhaled and tried to smile. Often when a person smiles, the person they are talking to will mirror that; I make use of this observation to judge when I should change the expression on my face during the flow of a conversation. Felix did not react at all and I could not discern if it was because I failed to pull together a convincing smile or because he would not have smiled to begin with.</p>
<p>Words failed me.</p>
<p>“Felix, I am certain you have your own reason,” I said.</p>
<p>Words failed me.</p>
<p>“And I won’t pry,” I continued. “But if there is even the slightest chance that you ever wish to return then I want you to know…”</p>
<p>What a convenient turn of phrase. <em>Words failed me </em>– as if some external force had let me down. But it was me disappointing myself. It was not that I could not find the words. It was that I did not want to speak them – how wretched it would be to say those words out loud for Felix to hear.</p>
<p>Instead I told him, “There will always be a place for you here.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Felix said. He looked forward again and I wished I could see his face. I convinced myself that if only I knew what expression he wore, I would be able to come up with a response that would make him change his mind. That way, I did not have to blame myself for my own inertia.</p>
<p>He left.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>What could I have done to make you want to stay?</em> – the question is pointless now. I know that. I do know that. What has occurred is not something that can be undone.</p>
<p>That was how it happened. I acknowledge it. I accept it. Even as I regret it, I must accept it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Anyway…</p>
<p>It isn’t as if I have to give up yet. At least, I don’t think so. I want to believe that. I <em>need</em> to believe that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So with that in mind:</p>
<p>What could I do or say… to make Felix want to come back?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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